


Give Me Your Scars

by siriuslyhiddenlawyer



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cutting, F/M, Heavy Angst, Post TFP, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 04, Psychological Trauma, Sherlolly - Freeform, Triggers, sherlolly angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-06-12 02:48:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15330063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslyhiddenlawyer/pseuds/siriuslyhiddenlawyer
Summary: During the fallout from Sherrinford, Molly is hiding something from Sherlock. When he inadvertently finds out, both of their worlds are shattered. HEAVY TRIGGER WARNINGS





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a post on Tumblr that saw parallels between the conversation Sherlock has with "Faith Smith" about her cutting and physical intimacy, and the ambulance bit where Sherlock tells Molly's she's stressed. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED BY CUTTING AND EMOTIONAL TRAUMA. This is EXTREMELY dark and heavy and I love you too much to let you read it if it'll upset you.  
> This is also not proofread or beta'd so forgive me the typos, they're all mine.

            Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper stood next to each other, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder though neither noticed how close they stood, neither noticed the way their bodies were canted towards each other, neither noticed their very breaths and heartbeats were synchronized. All they knew was that Molly was deep in thought as she read the results the computer had spit out, and that Sherlock had been staring into the microscope without speaking or moving for about half an hour now. There were forgotten mugs of coffee and stale cakes around their work area, both careful not to bring their food into contact with specimens or samples in the lab.

            Molly was the first to sigh her exhaustion, trying hard not to show her frustration, trying not to give away her sore eyes as she straightened up. She was suddenly overcome by a rage she couldn’t name, a rage that was familiar now, wanting to pick up the laptop and throw it against the wall, thinking that somehow the broken, shattered pieces of the equipment would be helpful.

            She might have done it too, if Sherlock hadn’t been in the lab with her. As guarded as she usually was around him, after Sherrinford, after everything that had come to the surface about his sister…she had built the wall around her heart with brick and mortar and had swore oath after oath to herself to never let Sherlock Holmes get close to her ever again. To never let him breach that wall. She had become obsessed with self-preservation, and if it meant she had to cut off Sherlock Holmes from her life, if it meant cutting her heart out of her chest, then so be it.

            At least she could still breath. At least she still had a chance, even if she didn’t have a heart, even if he owned her soul.

            Walking away from him, she lifted her arms above her head to stretch her shoulders and stiff neck, having been in the same, hunched-over position for endless hours. Her neck and shoulders cracked from misuse, the sound so loud it ricocheted through the silent lab. Her old self would have felt sheepish and embarrassed that her body was so tired, so prone to the frailties of human biology compared to the infallible, indestructible Sherlock Holmes.

            But she had no patience for him now, knew that the impervious god she had created was a mere human, a very flawed one, undeserving of her pain. Well, undeserving to know about her pain. She had come to think of her pain as a privilege, her burden a prize for the person who saw it, witnessed it.

            And Sherlock…well, he’d lost that privilege, hadn’t he? And he would never know…and she added it to the list of things he would never know.

            That night, after the phone call, when he’d stolen into her bedroom in the middle of the night, broken in body and mind, collapsing into a heap of tears and sobbing in her arms for endless hours. She’d managed to drag him into bed, silent and unassuming, refusing to question him in that moment as she’d stripped him of his dirty clothes and laid him in her bed. She hadn’t even questioned the way he’d looked at her with wild eyes when she’d moved to sleep on the sofa, hadn’t thought twice about calling into work the next morning because he’d needed her to stay, needed her to hold him through the nightmares that haunted his dreams. When he’d woke up, his eyes had been dull and rimmed with red, his words halting, fingers trembling against her face as she’d touched her like a blind man, his breath a gasp against her mouth as he’d kissed her, his orgasm a broken sigh when she’d taken him into her body.

            And she still hadn’t asked him, hadn’t pressed him, hadn’t demanded as she let him take his comfort from her, didn’t think to turn him away as he pressed his cheek to her chest and asked her if he could stay with her for a few days. She’d been so overwhelmed with him, her heart flowing and floating, on fire for his pain, obsessed with his comfort, she’d used her remaining vacation days to stay home with Sherlock Holmes, to dry his tears, to sate his body with hers, to let him heal.

            On the third night when he’d been inside her, their bodies slick with sweat, foreheads pressed together, hungry mouths searching each other as they shared breaths, he’d looked into her eyes and finally said something about that phone call. She’d sat in his lap, ankles locked around his waist with him fully seated inside her, invading her and stretching her so deliciously, breasts pressed against the sold wall of his chest as he’d told her that he’d meant it, that it wasn’t a game for him. He’d come deep inside her, murmuring that he’d meant it, he’d meant those three words…he’d meant it.

            On the fifth morning, Molly had woken up alone in her bed. She’d listened for him in the shower or downstairs in the kitchen. She’d risen out of bed, her body sore and aching from his relentless lovemaking, from the moments of madness that seemed to grip his bones and made him thrust almost violently inside her body. But all signs of him were gone from her flat, and she’d sighed, knowing whatever had happened between them was finished, a moment of insanity for him that would be deleted, filed away.

            And unfortunately, she hadn’t been wrong.

            He came to the lab not long after that, demanding her help, his eyes avoiding hers. She had no fight left in her and she simply reverted to routine and helped him with whatever he needed, even managing to smile for him, the fight rising in her and she refused to let him see he’d broken her.

            Shattered her.

            Destroyed her completely.

            He didn’t deserve to know.

            He didn’t deserve her pain.

            “Molly,” her name was a bark that drew her from her thoughts, her arms still held above her head in a stretch.

            “What?” she looked at him, frowning as she saw the fury and confusion on his face, the storm that brewed in his eyes, that turned his ice-colored eyes into glaciers with jagged edges. Too late she realized her lab coat had slipped down her arms, too late she realized the long sleeves underneath had slipped up her forearms as she’d stretched.

            He didn’t say anything, knocking over his stool and jostling the expensive equipment he’d been using as he barreled towards her, grinding his teeth. He didn’t say anything as he grabbed her left arm, effortlessly subduing her as she tried to twist it out of his grip, growling ferociously, “let go of me!” she snarled but he wasn’t listening, his eyes focused on the neat lines that travelled over the inside of her forearms. Neat little lines, one to two inches long, starting from her wrist and traveling up the inside of her arm. Some were obviously older, healing, others were new, red, raw…angry.

            “When—” his voice was rough, his head bent as he hid his face and eyes from her, his big hand wrapped around her wrist to stretch her arm out, the fingertips of his other hand whispering over the lines.

            “Can’t you guess,” she breathed, looking at the top of his bent head, tracing the reds and browns that swirled through the black of his perfect curls.

            He remained silent as she ceased breathing, resigned, giving up…and not for the first time. She fought the tears that stung her eyes but too late she realized they were already flowing down her cheeks unchecked. There was a part of her that became numb in that moment, as she watched his hands, knew he studied her skin, her scars, the remnants of her resilience, the evidence of her fight. Her love for him, her endless love, all her thoughts were there, etched in her arms with shockingly steady hands. And she wondered if he knew the ecstasy she’d felt when she’d finally felt something physical, when she’d stopped feeling so hollow in those moments without him when nothing could appease her, when nothing could keep her heart from exploding with want and need for her love, for her Sherlock.

            His ragged breathing caught her attention and she wanted to die for him, wanted to press her forehead to his and turn back time. Somehow, he didn’t deserve this pain, didn’t deserve to know what she felt through. She wanted to protect him from herself now, and the madness consumed her as she tore her arm away from him.

            “Why didn’t you—” his voice was shaking and he still didn’t look up as she rolled her sleeved down, “ _Christ_ Molly, my Molly,” he finally looked up at her with haunted, angry eyes, his throat convulsing as he tried to push the words around the lump in his throat, the ache in his soul, “why….why….” but he caught her wrist again when she tried to roll her sleeved down, “don’t hide your scars.”

            “They’re my scars,” she snarled, the anger and violence brewing inside her made her petulant, unwilling to show him her weakness, knowing he’d exploit her, knowing he’d hurt her.

            A funny expression crossed his face, a small gasp as he pulled her towards him, tears streaming down his gaunt face, looking as if he’d seen a ghost, “you can’t keep that,” he murmured, “they’re my scars now.”

            “Did you—ever—” he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the question out, “before—that night…”

            “Did I cut myself before that _week_?” she finished viciously, “yes. When I was a teenager,” she told him, “but those scars have pretty much completely faded.”

            “She knew,” he breathed, his eyes and tone slightly mad, “she _knew_.”

            “I don’t—” her voice was morphing with her tears, so exhausted she didn’t want to know who “she” was, she doubted he could understand her anyway, “I don’t want you to know, I don’t want you to see them—I don’t want _you_ Sherlock, I don’t want— _any_ of you. Anywhere near me.”

            She tried to jerk her arm out of his grip but he tightened his fingers, bowing his head again and she watched his tears hit the sterile floor of the lab, “don’t say that,” his voice was a breath, a sob of pain as if he’d been stabbed in the chest, his lungs punctured, “don’t say that,” he begged now, “you can’t mean it.”

            She pressed her forehead to the top of his head, against his perfect curls, against his brilliant mind, against the soul that had destroyed and shattered her, eviscerated her, subjected her to inhuman torture. “I do,” she sobbed, “I hate you,” she told him, “I hate you so much I can’t breath from it Sherlock,” she cried, his grip on her wrist so tight her fingers were going numb, “you don’t know what you’ve done to me, you don’t understand how much I’ve suffered for you, because of you. Over and over and _over_ again,” she pressed her forehead harder against the top of his head, “it feels like…like…God I don’t even know how to make you understand! I’m not me, Sherlock. I stopped being _me_ because you took all I had. And I hate you so much, I just—I just want to go away from you, from here. Stop being Molly Hooper because Molly fucking Hooper loves you so fucking much she can’t stand it because you use it against her over and over and over again, Sherlock. You toy with her, you play with her, you play _her_. And you never _once_ stop to think about what a mess you’ve left behind, the heap of rotting flesh and bones--”

            He collapsed to his knees at that, pressing his wet face to her wrist as he wept, words beyond either of them, pain beyond their world, transcending all that they were, all that they could ever be.


	2. Mutual Destruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings apply. Let me know what you think!

Sherlock pounded his fist against the door, the contents of his pocket burning a hole in his Belstaff, weighing him down. He was grinding his teeth into nubs, the anxiety he felt electrifying him to the point that he thought he should stay out of the rain or he’d get electrocuted. He was dripping wet, having decided to walk through the streets of London from his meeting with Wiggins to get to Molly’s flat, thinking the stroll through London would help erase the memory of those marked arms, the reality of those cuts.

            _Molly_ …

            When she didn’t open the door, he pounded his fist again, his hair dripping wet and limp into his eyes and face, hiding his tears. At least there was that, he told himself, growling with frustration as she refused to open the door. He could see that her lights were on, everything about her flat told him she was home. She knew it was him, that’s why she wasn’t opening the door. He weighed his options then, unsure of himself, the feeling all too familiar now, the doubt having seated itself into his mind palace ever since Norbury, since Mary, since Sherrinford…since the beginning of time it seemed. He reached into his pocket for the bit of wire he usually used to break into her flat, but twirled it between his fingers instead, thinking.

            His mind palace was in…chaos didn’t seem to be the right word, lacking the apocalyptic state of everything that had ever made him Sherlock Holmes, every fiber of thought that had woven itself to make him who he was. Disarray. Destruction. Hysteria. Frenzy. Agitation. Fury. Rage. The building that had once housed his thoughts in near-sterile cleanliness and condition was now water damaged and after the flood of Sherrinford and the memories that now overwhelmed him to the point where he physically felt as if he were being swept up by waves, by tsunamis, even as he stood on his two legs and knew he wasn’t drowning. Every step he took was in waterlogged skin, skin that he wished he could shed, skin unfamiliar to him now.

            The only time the tide had ceased, the chaos had receded, the madness had abated, was when he’d been with Molly. In Molly’s bed, Molly’s arms, Molly’s thoughts… _Molly’s heart_.

            From somewhere in his mind, he remembered the songs to a lyric he’d caught her listening to in the morgue once… _Descend to me, sooth my disarray, and so it’s done, hear my words…_

            Now they were both tainted, both destroyed, both shells of human beings because of him. Because of his callousness, his unworthiness, his inability to be all that he told the world he was. Sherlock had felt confident and intelligent, high on his own arrogance, in his belief about himself because he’d looked at Molly, this beautiful, pure, crystal-clear lake that washed away all his sins, and thought that if she looked at him with trust and confidence and admiration, then he must be _something_. She caused him to believe that he was everything the world thought he was, what he thought he was.

            Without that, he felt bereft, deprived. A lie, a shell of a man in skin not his own.

            It had become a game with him, after a while. Going into the lab and having experiments in mind, with the one that he’d been running since the moment he’d laid his eyes on Molly Hooper— how much could he push her before she broke? What would he have to say? What would he have to do to make her stand up to him?

            Christmas and her admonishment of him in front of the gathered group at 221B, the night he’d believed The Woman to have died, that had convinced him she’d walk away. But she hadn’t, obediently, willingly, out of loyalty or insanity, she had answered his call and met him and Mycroft at the morgue not two hours after he’d treated her so brutally.

            During Lazarus, when he’d turned to her in his most desperate moment, when he’d invaded her flat, her life, when he’d forced her to put her career and life on the line for him...all she’d asked was what he needed, never bothering to let him find out if she needed anything in turn.

            After John and Mary’s wedding, when she’d read the lab test results and her rage, her disappointment in him had been so complete that she’d been forced to manifest it through physical acts…he’d wanted her to be done with him but she hadn’t stopped standing by his side, had never stopped supporting him.

            In that ambulance after Mary’s death, when she’d poured her heart out at his feet, weeping her concern for him and gasped into his mouth as he’d kissed her, holding her in his lap even as a wild part of his brain had demanded he die at that exact moment, with the taste of Molly Hooper on his tongue.

            _My Molly_.

            He’d kissed her as a way to shut her up, his drug addled mind unable to come up with an alternative way to make her stop breaking his very soul, shattering him. He’d never understood the term “heart in her eyes” until Molly had gripped his hand in the ambulance and begged him to stop, begged him to get help, begged him not to die because she would die too. He’d kissed her to shut up her up but he’d found he liked the taste of her too much, reveled in her warmth, in the way she melted against his chest and he’d been so intrigued by the feel of her softness.

            She’d wept for him, wept for the state of disrepair he was in, for the state of his body, weeping because she knew he would die if he didn’t stop. He’d held the memories of her in his lap, in that jostling ambulance, her tears wetting his throat and tongue, the first clean things he’d tasted and the most cleansing liquid that had ever touched his skin…he’d wished for her hatred just so she could find someone else, someone who could fulfill everything she wanted from him.

            Someone like Meat-Dagger.

            _Not Meat-Dagger, someone better. Someone worthy of my Molly_.

            He would never tell her, well, he thought he’d never tell her, that he woke up nearly every night since Sherrinford, screaming at the top of his lungs because she’d hated him in his dreams. She’d finally hated him, she’d finally found her freedom from the love that had shackled her to his rotting soul, and she’d refused to say those three words. Those three meaningless words that held the universe within their very syllables, that held the secrets of the universe within every breath hidden between each spoken letter….and he watched her die, every night he watched her die.

            So, he’d stopped sleeping. When that had become unfeasible, he’d set his alarm for every 2 hours, forcing himself to wake up before he slipped into REM sleep.

            What kind of man did that? What kind of _human_ was so torn apart, so poorly put together that they had to purposefully interrupt their own sleep cycle to avoid dreams.

            He was a broken man, he’d finally realized.

            But it had been too little too late, because he’d broken her too.

            His mind fluttered to the coffin that had those three words on it, the coffin that lived and breathed in his dreams containing the body of Molly… _his Molly_ …the coffin who’s slivers had embedded themselves in his hands, in his hair, the slivers Molly… _his Molly_ …had so carefully removed later that night in her flat, with her gentle hands, and her gentle lips, and her gentle heart, and her soul…God she was his soul…

            But he’d broken her, shattered her, the slivers of her were in his hands now too, in his hair…and he’d taken away her arms, her heart, her compassion, and she couldn’t remove them from his skin and hair with her lips nestled against his throat as she soothed him.

            He was so broken that he could only think of one way to draw Molly out, to make her see, make her understand, make himself worthy of her forgiveness for everything he’d ever done for her. There was some part of him that had been tempted to buy a flogging whip and gouge his own skin for her, for every pale or raw line that she’d drawn into her skin because he’d broken her so absolutely, so completely.

            He put in a policy of mutual destruction for them and she didn’t even know it.

            Sherlock pressed his forehead against the door, raising his voice as agitation grew in him, “Molly!” he yelled, “open this door or I’ll break it down!” he yelled, digging the bit of wire into his palm yet unwilling to use it to open the door himself. Curious, that he’d broken into her flat without any qualms so many times before…“Molly!” he pounded his fist so hard he had to stop or break the wood.

            But he didn’t have to because she flung it open, her eyes wild and unfamiliar to him, as unfamiliar as the ponytail was familiar to his exhausted eyes or the taste of her skin on his tongue. “What do you want,” she asked in a defeated tone. She looked sunken in the gray pullover she wore, the sleeves too big and hiding her hands from him. Those hands that had caressed his skin, those fingers that had run through his hair as she held him inside her, against her chest after he’d orgasmed inside her…those fingers that had held the razor blades that had cut her skin.

            He felt sick to his stomach, his mind easily conjuring the line of bright red blood that bloomed against the creamy whiteness of her arms.

            Sherlock had never hated himself as much as he hated himself in that moment.

            “To talk,” he murmured, “for you to listen.”

            “There’s nothing you can say to make me interested in what you have to say Sherlock, this is a waste of time,” she moved to close the door, but he blocked it with his shoulder.

            “You owe me that,” he told her, hearing the danger in his own voice.

            She was shorter than him, barely coming up to his chest but she was ferocious, strong as she looked up at him, meeting his anger with anger, “I owe you _nothing_ ,” she laughed but there was no humor in it, “if I ever owed you anything, I’ve paid for it with my life, time and time again. In fact, the way it stands, you’re in debt to _me_.”

            “Let me pay it then,” he insisted, “Molly—”

            But she cut him off, “I don’t want your fucking _payment_. I don’t want anything from you, except for you to leave me the hell alone.”

            She tried to close the door again but this time he rushed her, pushing the door open with his strength and stepping into the flat, forcing her back. Panic gripped his heart, the thought that his wishes had come true, that she hated him and he felt...he felt nonexistent. He no longer mattered if Molly… _if Molly_.

            “Sherlock,” she stood with her back to wall in the front entrance, her hands shaking as she brought them out up to her eyes, “I have nothing to give you, I have…nothing left for you. I’m done,” all the tension drained from her muscles, slumping against the wall as she looked at him with vacant eyes, “all that I am you took away Sherlock, I gave everything to you. I’m…” she laughed again, that terrifying, empty sound, “nothing. Just a shell. Used up and discarded.”

            “I _never_ intended—I never… _discarded_ —” but he had, hadn’t he? He’d used her, he’d buried himself and his demons inside her, found peace in her arms, in her sighs and smiles, found escape in her kisses. It felt like he’d dived into a crystal-clear lake, all his sins washed away, leaving him feeling rejuvenated and ready to face the world. He remembered feeling so relieved and light that he hadn’t considered the fact that he’d left all those demons behind to haunt and taunt Molly, destroying her as he moved through his world.

            _Christ_.

            “You were the only good thing in my life,” he forced the words out around the lump in his throat, “you still are the only good thing Molly, tell me—tell me what I can do to make this right.”

            She shook her head, “there’s nothing—”

            “There must be something.”

            Molly pushed herself away from the wall, running a hand over her hair as she walked away from him towards her kitchen, “nothing,” she murmured.

            He watched her move mechanically around her kitchen, filling the tea kettle, avoiding his eyes as she grabbed her box of tea bags from the owl cookie jar she used to store them. Sherlock was transported to Sherrinford, transported to the helpless moment he’d stood in front of the monitor and watched her making tea, watched her answer the phone, his heart thudding with terror as he watched the clock countdown, as he begged her to say those three words to him. The shock that had ricocheted through him when she’d insisted he say it first, that he tell her those three words. Saying those words…they’d felt so right the first time, he’d had to say them again because _God_ , it felt great, it felt like the truth. The truth that would sustain him to the end of time, the truth he’d avoided for so damn long.

            _So many days not lived, so many words unsaid._

            The Molly that lived in his mind had suddenly become _my Molly_. She had transformed from being the entity of light that he avoided to the light he needed, clung to with a desperation he didn’t want to face, a desperation he wanted to deny with all that he was. The horrors of Sherrinford had become his battle ground to not just survive, not just find a way to save John Watson or his brother, but a battleground to get to his Molly.

            The switch had flipped when he’d watched her cry on the security monitor. He’d claimed her as his…and as in all things he claimed as his own, he’d destroyed her. His brand of love, his brand of friendship destroyed.

            All the poets, all the writers that spouted about the flowers and sunshine of love, the analogy of love as a fertile soil for planting a new life…clearly hadn’t met him.

            “Help me fix this,” he murmured, standing in her path as she moved to grab something from her refrigerator.

            She shook her head stubbornly, “leave me alone,” she told him, and pushed away from him again when months ago, he knew she would have melted against his chest, against his heart, into his skin and he would feel her. Feel his Molly in his arms.

            _My Molly_.

            What was life without her?

            Why should he fight for life when she refused to do so?

            Those thin, pale scars had helped him realize his heart lived outside his body now. And if his heart refused to beat? Refused to live? To give life? To sustain life?

            What use was he?

            “Fine,” he murmured, taking a deep breath, resigned. He walked away from her, reaching into his Belstaff for his black bag of horrors, putting it gently, reverently on her coffee table. He shrugged out of his great coat, tossing it on the armchair before methodically shrugging out of his jacket and throwing it on top. He unbuttoned the sleeve of his right arm, ignoring the twin lumps of horror and anticipation as he exposed his forearm, sitting on the ground.

            Sherlock didn’t know whether or not she was watching him or not but it was beyond her now, beyond her control.

            _Mutual destruction_.

            He opened the bag, taking out the decrepit spoon and the lighter, the small packet of powder, the syringe and the tourniquet. His hands started shaking as he took out the three razor blades, arranging them carefully opposite him for her to use. He was tying the tourniquet around his bicep, fighting tears, “Sherlock! What the _fuck_ are you doing?” she yelled.

            “For every cut in your skin Molly,” he growled, his voice deeper than usual, thick with emotion, “you’re mine Molly Hooper. You’re my heart and soul. You’re my body. You’re my _everything_. You hurt, I hurt. You cry I cry,” he clenched his jaw, “You hurt I hurt.”


	3. Time and Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in place (self-harm/suicidal thoughts)

Molly liked living in a fantasy world. 

It was certainly more appetizing than living in her actual reality, a lot sunnier too even though her ideal weather was thunder and lightning. But the sun she pretended to have lived in her soul, not in the weather system.

 _I can control the weather with my moods, I can’t control my moods is all_.

In her fantasy world, she wasn’t Molly Hooper. She may have been named Molly Hooper, she may even look like Molly, dress like this current Molly and even have Molly’s occupation. But the fantasy Molly wasn’t attached to anyone or anything. She came and went as she pleased, lived in a secure cocoon, with no one in her life to rely on or trust. After all, didn’t people always disappoint when you relied on them or trusted them to do something? In the real world, in the non-fantasy world where the sun actually did shine but a storm raged in her skin, she had learned that the greatest pain came from expecting those around her to treat her with the same love she treated them with. Or, worse yet, expecting them to act with...well, decency.

She sometimes wondered if it was normal to live in a fantasy world where she was simply appreciated, or live in a fantasy world where she lived on a virtual island.

No people, no expectation, no bone crushing disappointment.

No love, no sex, no heartbreak, therefore, no Sherlock.

 _No Sherlock._  

Was it normal to imagine the perfect world and know it was perfect because the love of your life didn’t live there? Was it normal to imagine the perfect world but make it one where she was a human island? Isolated and at last, happy? Sure, she existed in that world as pointlessly as she did in this one, but she at least wouldn’t know what she was missing.

She didn’t sleep anymore. 

It was a foreign concept, a lovely thought, a fantasy as surreal as the world where she was a human island. She took naps because her body tricked her into them, but she often woke up with thoughts screaming in her mind to wake up, to wake up and panic, to wake up and think, wake up and  _scream._

The only benefit to not sleeping was that she had become intimately familiar with late-night television, and her thoughts were usually so jumbled, so desperate for rest that she could write a book, call it philosophical, and be hailed as a revolutionary thinker for her madcap ramblings. 

_Ramblings of an Empty Soul by Molly Hooper, an expert._

_What_ _To_ _Do When You’ve Sold Your Soul to the Devil or: How I Lost My Soul and Simultaneously Realized that My Devil is also the Love of my Life by Molly Hooper, currently trying to buy back her soul._

These ramblings sometimes took nonsensical turns, such as outlandish titles for books that she would never write, to panicking about things that would never happen in futures that could never exist, to giving herself panic attacks over things that didn’t matter, to imagining what it would be like if she simply...disappeared.

Sometimes the thoughts became dark, and she imagined what it would be like if she cut herself deep enough one day. If her car took a turn too sharply and she...slammed into an immovable force? If she took too many of the pills the doctor gave for her back injury? 

Who would miss her? Who would care? Would anyone notice? Or would there be a collective sigh of relief?

_Thank God that Hooper person’s gone! Phew! What a pain in the_ _arse_ _! Always so needy, so quiet! It always left like there was a dark spot in the room whenever she was around. A living black hole. Good riddance!_

But sometimes they weren’t as dark, but dark enough. She wondered what would happen if she became gravely ill, if she broke her limbs, if something happened to her physically?

Was it narcissism that she tried to create a list of people who would care?

Or what is a survival mechanism? Giving herself an excuse to keep moving.

But those thoughts, however far-fetched, however fantastical, always came back and rested on the same point, on the same person, as accurately and as inevitably as a compass pointing to true north: Sherlock.

The fantasy world she’d created for herself before Sherrinford had been a fantasy where she lived happily with Sherlock, with her love. They were optimistic fantasies, fantasies of him being the perfect partner, her better half. In those old fantasies, he would tell her he loved her and would never stop until the end of time. He would hold her in his arms every night, have breakfast with her every morning, and compromise with her after every fight. In those outdated fantasies, he would love her as much as she loved him, and nothing could get in their way.

In those childish fantasies, love would be enough.

But that had been before...

Before she’d tasted his kisses, before she’d learned what it was like to be held in his arms, before she’d known the taste of his skin, tasted the salt of his body, felt the shudder of his orgasms...Before she’d watched the way the rays of a rising sun cast shadows on his face, before she’d memorized the way his sleepy eyes flew open every morning, alert and focused...Before she’d been shocked to realize that the mere touch of his skin comforted her, before she’d found herself grinning at the thought that Sherlock Holmes kissed with his eyes open...before she’d watched him in the shower, before she’d found that freckle directly in the center of his back, as if deliberately placed there...

She knew what she was missing now. 

What was it about his touch? His skin? His muscles? His bones? What was it about the memory of his touch? The taste of his skin? The phantom sensations on her lips as she tasted his skin in her mind, felt the strength of his muscles, the very existence of his bones...

How was she expected to live without that now? Live without him? Without touching his skin? Feeling his love?

What was the point of living when you knew your heart and soul weren’t yours? That they were being held hostage, tormented willingly outside your body?

Molly looked at Sherlock now with tiredness oozing out of her soul. 

Why couldn’t this just be over?

Why couldn’t all of this just...stop?

God, she needed a break from this, from him, from herself, from the constant bombardment of thoughts and heartbreaks and torment? What had she done to deserve this severe love?

She wished she had a fast forward button, impatient to find out how this would end.

“What’s your point?” she found her voice, gesturing to the paraphernalia he had laid out so methodically on her coffee table, “this...this...this is guilt,” she heard herself force a laugh that sounded possessed, unnatural, “this isn’t about you caring, this isn’t you...trying to make a mends. This is you feeling guilty, and trying to make yourself feel better by either shitting all over me, or getting high enough that you just don’t care about what you’ve done.”

He was shaking his head, running a trembling hand through his limp curls, dark circles under his dull eyes, “you’re wrong.”

“Am I?” she laughed again, “would anything have changed if you hadn’t seen my arm? Would you be here, being this dramatic, if I'd simply come to you, one normal fucking human being to another and said ‘hey, so you fucked my brains out for five days straight, told me you loved me and have for quite some time, and then disappeared, and that actually really hurt. Can we please talk about it? You really hurt me.’ I can, word for word, tell you what your response would have been--” she spoke over him, “you would roll your eyes so hard they’d threaten to fall out of their sockets, then you’d say ‘stop being so dramatic, Molly’ then you’d walk away.”

“That’s not...that’s not true,” he was shaking his head, “Molly...” he frowned up at her from the floor, “is that how you think of me? How you  _see_  me?”

“It’s a frighteningly real portrait, is it?” she dropped down into the armchair next to him. Her words were acerbic and full of her pain and anger but God, she couldn’t walk away from him, not with that needle poised at his healthy vein. 

“That’s not who I am,” he growled.

“That’s how you love,” she murmured, “you don’t know how to.”

“Then teach me,” he sounded like he was begging, and for a moment her heart thawed... _Oh Sherlock._

“I tried,” she replied. 


	4. How You Love

He was bleeding like a sieve, desperate, on his last breath, why couldn’t she see that? Why couldn’t she understand?

 _That’s how you love_.

Was he simply destruction for all of those that surrounded him? All those he cared about?

He thought about his parents, Mycroft and Euros, John and Rosie... _Mary_.

Sherlock watched Molly tilt her head, her eyes void of emotions and empty, flat brown instead of the pools of chocolate he was used to. Her sweet mouth, always ready for a smile, was now a grim line as she watched him with such disinterest, marrow deep exhaustion that he wanted to cure. _But how?_

His family, with the exception of Euros, had always understood his inability to express love or affection, had been rather indifferent to his ability to express himself. His parents, he knew now, hadn’t been bothered because they understood the source of his inability to express emotions. Mycroft, although less emotional than even Sherlock, had been indifferent as well because he understood the root cause, had tried to protect him from it. John had never had the patience for him, and Mary...Mary hadn’t needed him to be expressive or affectionate, they’d gotten along just fine.

Molly had always been the one to understand him, to sit patiently with him while he tried to sort through his feelings, hadn’t seen his lack of emotional maturity as a flaw but a part of him to understand, to be patient with, to sit with. She never pushed him. After Sherrinford, when he’d been a mess, when his mind palace had been cluttered with things he didn’t understand, with _emotions_ he’d never felt before, she had talked him through it. It was true, he had spent those five days in her body, taking solace and comfort in physical proximity, suddenly craving physical contact like a man starved, but he remembered afterwards...Afterwards when they would lay in bed together, or huddle together beneath a blanket in her living room, and she would simply listen as he stuttered, as he growled and cursed as he tried to name things he had never needed to know before.

Love, yearning, affection, intimacy, _emotional_ intimacy...things he had believed to be useless, unproductive but now...

He still _felt_ the softness of her voice as she told him to be patient, as she tried to explain to him in terms he could understand why all those things were necessary. _All those complicated little emotions..._

Molly’s ability to use science and biology to explain those useless emotions to him had been the reason why he had been able to continue living, why he was able to go to Euros every other week and play violin with her...without Molly, he would have been crippled, would have resorted to drugs a long time ago, probably overdosing.

And he’d thanked her by walking away.

His eyes traced the scars on her arms, scars she didn’t bother to hide from him, something hardening in her eyes as she seemed to dare him to look, to understand.

He wanted that Molly to return and replace the broken one that sat with him now, wanted the Molly that had carried him, that had allowed him to unburden himself with her, allowed him to simply be when he was with her.

To his horror, he now realized the burden had to go somewhere. It didn’t simply disappear, when he transferred it to Molly...it stayed there, with her. He was able to be happy around her because she protected him from it all, but at what cost?

How selfish was he to expect her to buck up now? He was so lost in his pain, in his misery, his own world that he left Molly in the dark. Why was he shocked that they had ended up here?

A self-professed and verified genius, the world’s only consulting detective with an international reputation...he still hadn’t figured out how horribly he had treated Molly, the only element in the universe the drew some light for him.

He was emotionally crippled, amputated. And he could no longer count on Molly fixing him, just because she was Molly.

“Try again,” he found his voice.

Her laugh was cold as she shifted in her seat, tucking her legs beneath her, wrapping her arms around herself and rolling into a ball in the armchair, protecting herself...from him. “I can’t,” she said softly, so softly that he thought she had whispered in his mind, not in this void between them, “I don’t have it in me Sherlock, why can’t you understand? I’ve given you _everything.”_

“Molly--” he stopped, unsure of what to say, how to say it, “I don’t know—I don’t understand how to fix this, any of this. I’m-- I’m not--” he felt tears stinging in his eyes, frustration rising bile in his throat as he felt suffocated, words lodged in his throat, in his stomach, yearning for an exit but unable to find a way out, “I don’t understand what I have to do. I'm not—normal. I can’t feel things like everyone else. My parents, my brother, have told me I used to be...normal, I used to be emotional before--” he forced the words out, forced the confession when he realized she was finally listening to him, “before Victor disappeared. I’ve lost that sense and I-- I never thought it would hurt anybody, I never wanted to hurt anybody Molly—especially not _you_ and I really need your help to undo...undo what I've done, what I've said.”

She didn’t say anything, and with every tear that slipped down her cheek he found his breath becoming labored, desperate to wipe away her tears _at least_. As calm as he usually was, as collected and logical as he was known to be, he was frantic now. He was unrecognizable, even to himself. He felt like all that he was, all that he had ever been and would be was at her feet now, begging her to have mercy.

_If I wasn’t everything you think I am, everything I think I am, would you help me?_

_What do you need?_

He always asked too much, demanded too much, and never gave her anything back.

He wanted to tear his hair out in frustration, but her quiet voice stayed him, “I can give you a list of things to do to fix this,” she said softly, “I can tell you to do A B and C, I can ask you to speak to someone, a therapist again, to deal with all of this. I can tell you to send me flowers and expensive gifts to win me back, I can tell you to get down and your knees and--” she shrugged, “but we’ve lost each other darling,” he glanced up at her, her smile so heartbreaking, “I’ve lost _me.”_

Sherlock crawled towards her, kneeling down in front of her armchair and took her hands in his, kissing her fists and breathing her in. She smelled and felt like Molly, she was his Molly.

But how was he supposed to remind her of that?

“I’ll figure this out,” he spoke against her skin, her skin so soft against his mouth, so alarmingly familiar as he tried to pretend he didn’t see the lines out of the corner of his eye, “but swear to me, you’ll stop hurting yourself Molly. Just give me some time.”

She untangled one hand from his, running it through his hair, her nails scratching his scalp, “promise not to start using.”

Sherlock gently pulled away from her, looking deep into her eyes, “I’ll find a way to live for you Molly.”

They sat in the silence for heartbeats, and she let him rest his head against her foot, sitting on the floor and simply feeling grateful she at least let him touch her. What was it about a lover’s skin, he wondered, what chemical in his brain recognized the skin his forehead rested against as that of his lover, releasing such deep pleasure and calm even though he lived in a whirlwind now, in chaos. He didn’t understand it, and as his frustration grew, he fought the urge to become angry with the unproductive thoughts, the urge to wipe them away, to shove them into the cellars of his mind palace in trunks he never opened.

“Why did you leave,” he asked him in that same soft tone.

He felt like a damn cat as he rubbed his cheek against her foot but he couldn’t help himself, “I don’t know,” he answered honestly, “I didn’t want to,” he admitted, “but it felt like if I stayed something was going to happen, something was going to snap in me.”

Sherlock remembered that morning, remembered the hours he’d spent during the night, memorizing everything about her as she’d slept, boneless and spent, serene against his chest. He loved the way she always reached for him in her sleep, always curled her body around his, her fist against his chest, or her foot touching his, as if a simple touch brought her comfort even in sleep. He had come to look forward to the way she woke up, to watching the way she opened her eyes and always smiling her pleasure when she saw him there, the way she loved playing with the hair at his chest, rubbing her cheek against his skin the way he was rubbing his own cheek against her foot now.

He'd felt so overwhelmed with her, and instead of trying to understand the sensation, instead of trying to attribute the feeling of being overwhelmed as a positive thing, he had started to convince himself that he felt suffocated by her. That he had felt no pleasure in spending five days doing everything with Molly, having her fill his every waking heartbeat. He had worked hard, but he’d eventually forced himself to believe that he was growing tired of this, bored of the proximity, of her smiles and endless affection, of being touched and treated lovingly, affectionately. To having his every need anticipated, tired of wanting to please, and taking pleasure in doing things for her, learning that simple things made her smile more broadly than large, grandiose gestures.

He'd lied and told himself he wouldn’t miss falling asleep to her every night and waking up to her every morning. He convinced himself, as he slipped out of bed, as she frowned in her sleep, that she was simply having a nightmare that he couldn’t help, that the frown wasn’t because she was already missing his warmth as much as he missed her. He'd gotten dressed and walked away with a backwards glance, knowing he would stay forever if he had thought about it.

What had he left behind...

“You scare me,” he told her now.

Molly laugh was a surprised burst of air, “I scare _you_? How?”

There was genuine amusement in her tone and he had to look up to see the smile that accompanied it, the spark in her eyes, “you made me want to change,” he confessed, “you _make_ me want to be better, to do better.”

“I want you to take responsibility,” she told him finally, “I need you to start owning your mistakes Sherlock, instead of running from them because I'm always left here--” Molly stopped and shook her head, “it doesn’t matter.”

“Why,” he hissed.

“Because we’re going to end up right back where we started,” she slowly extracted herself from him, rejecting his touch, “I always believed love was everything, that it was enough. That even if you didn’t love me, I could love enough for both of us. But I'm not as strong as I thought.”


	5. The Soul You Love, The Soul You Adore

He left her flat not long after that, the silence between them devastating but unavoidable. He hadn’t known what to say, and she was tired of talking, exhausted from listening.

Molly woke up the next morning and stared at her forearms with disbelief in the shower, some film having been removed from her eyes as she kept thinking that these weren’t her arms, how could they be?

But they were, and they were reminders of her state of mind, of the endless pain she was in but couldn’t voice, couldn’t share, didn’t dare share. And if she wanted to, with who? She had no friends that could listen or sympathize, no family that would be able to listen, no colleagues she was close to.

The next option was a therapist but even that seemed too much. She was caught between thinking this was no big deal, that she was being as over dramatic as Sherlock, and being desperately terrified of her next move, of the next low of her depression. She questioned herself constantly, wondering if it was as bad as she thought, or if she was overreacting.

Maybe people were right, maybe the way to get through depression and being suicidal was to simply...get over it. Just to push through it, simply remind herself that she had nothing to complain about. She had everything when most people lacked even food, water, and shelter. And here she was, feeling sorry for herself in an expensive flat in the most expensive part of London, holding one of the most prestigious positions in a hospital. 

The thoughts of inadequacy, of ungratefulness began to stir, to whirlwind in her mind, an unstoppable hurricane that her stepping away from the autopsy table and taking a deep breath, her hand shaking as she removed her goggles. She was having another panic attack, and she reminded herself that the only way to get through it was to remind herself not to panic about having a panic attack.

She forced air into her lungs, forced herself to focus on her breathing instead of the endless thoughts that were bombarding her, so persistent that she thought they would begin to leak out of her ears, spilling on the floor like so many worms, snakes, adders, scorpions, spiders...

_Inhale..._

_Exhale..._

_Inhale..._

The door to the morgue flew open without warning, catching her off-guard and startling her so much she jumped, “Christ!” she hissed, her heart thundering and she threw a hand out, catching herself against the wall before she fell to the floor, adrenaline now pounding her mind.

“Molly? Are you alright?” it was John Watson, walking towards her with his practiced, urgent gait, his eyes squints of concern. 

“Yeah, you just—just gave me a fright that’s all,” she brushed him off, walking towards the recorder by the corpse she’d been using to make annotations for later.

“I know a panic attack when I see one,” he murmured, frowning at her.

“You just scared me,” she repeated, thinking that wherever John went, Sherlock inevitably followed, “is Sherlock with you?”

Before John could answer, she heard Sherlock’s familiar footsteps echoing down the hall, “Lestrade called us in, yeah.”

“Of course,” she murmured, “uhm, I'd greatly appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to Sherlock?”

“The panic attack?”

“You scaring the daylights out of me,” she murmured and watched Sherlock’s shadow appear in the small window beyond the autopsy room, the familiar shape of his broad hand pushing open the door. And there he was, wearing his massive overcoat but having forsaken his familiar scarf, he wore a dark suit beneath, the collar of his dark blue shirt open at the throat. He looked inexplicably different, more drawn, older, more gaunt and haunted.

“Everything alright?” he looked between her and Watson.

“Fine,” John answered before she had a chance to compose herself, “was just telling Molly that Lestrade called us in on the latest floater.”

“Find anything?” Sherlock asked, clasping his hands behind his back as he began to walk in circles around her, listening as she told him everything she’d found on the body. He stopped behind her at one point, directly behind her, so close that she thought she could feel the heat of his body and could’ve sworn he inhaled her, as if inhaling her scent before he continued his rounds.

She rubbed her forehead, having spoken for endless minutes, nonstop, “the Thames washed away everything we could’ve used to track the attacker, but I can tell you that he had pizza just before he was killed. There’s no trace of poison in his stomach content so the pizza wasn’t tampered with, but it seems he took a last bite of his slice and died,” she grabbed the file from her desk, shoving it at Sherlock, “they used a special ingredient in the pizza.”

Sherlock frowned, the intensity returning his body as he flipped through the paperwork she’d put together regarding the death of the man on her slab. His color changing eyes quickly scanned the information, “oregano?”

She nodded, “it’s a very special type of oregano, very rare especially here. It grows on the banks of the Nile, very expensive too from what I've seen.”

“So,” John looked thoughtful, his arms folded in front of him, “if we find a pizza place that uses this special oregano, we find the last place he ate?”

Molly nodded again, “judging from the way the body decomposed and the effects of drowning on stomach content, I would say the restaurant is near the Thames. Within walking distances,” she told him, “he was immediately killed then thrown into the river.”

“And you said cause of death wasn’t drowning,” John murmured, “so what killed him?”

Molly shrugged, “haven’t been able to figure that out yet. There’s no blunt trauma or breakage of skin that I can see. If he was poisoned, it’s with something I haven’t been able to trace. I can absolutely say that he wasn’t drowned, shot, stabbed, or hit with a blunt instrument nor did he die from natural causes.”

“That certainly narrows down the possibilities,” Sherlock murmured as if to himself, putting the file down and digging into his pocket for his magnifier, looking for something on the man’s skin, “what have you screened the bloodwork for?”

He straightened up as he listened to her list all the poisons and chemical compounds she had looked for in the man’s system but hadn’t been able to find. Taking a breath, she was about to reach up to massage the aching muscles in her neck but resisted the argue as she looked back into Sherlock’s steady, scrutinizing gaze. Knowing him, he’d probably caught the way her arm had jerked but she’d forced it down at her side, “what’s next?” John asked, interrupting her thoughts.

They spent a few more minutes talking about the man on the slab, with John and Sherlock deciding to get Lestrade’s help in going to the restaurant with the oregano. “John, can you give us some privacy?” Sherlock asked as they got ready to leave.

John’s eyes bounced disbelievingly between Molly and Sherlock, probably noticing the way Molly rolled her eyes, but he nodded, murmuring a good bye to Molly before disappearing out of the door. When Sherlock was sure he was gone, he turned to her, positioning them so they he was facing the door and blocking her from the view of anyone passing by outside. “How are you?” he asked, his voice gruff.

The question startled her, had her blinking at him like a cow, “I’m....basically fine,” she told him. 

“I wanted to tell you I haven’t been visiting often because I have three cases right now and they’re all over 8,” he stopped, his words becoming more rapid as he backtracked, “not that the cases take precedent over you but they are urgent matters, with very real life and death situations that require my full attention because the Yard wouldn’t be able to handle them if they had all the time in the world, which they don’t. That’s still not a good enough excuse, and it still won’t be good enough if I tell you have I've been visiting with my sister too and I usually get back so late from Sherrinford and you’re usually so exhausted after work, I don’t want to disrupt your sleep--”

“Sherlock,” she interrupted, shocked at his insecurity, at the scattered way he spoke.

“What I'm trying to say,” he took a deep breath, taking a step closer to her, “is that I've missed you, and I want to know you’re alright.”

“I told you, basically fine,” Molly murmured, wanting to walk away from him but she always felt like she was locked in a tractor beam when he was looking at her like that, with those eyes, with that much concentration.

“Let me see your arms,” he said softly, as if he’d been debating whether or not he should ask her.

“Let me see yours,” she challenged, and was surprised when he shrugged out of his coat, deftly unrolling both of his sleeves after he threw his coat and jacket on her stool behind them. She looked down at his skin, watched the way the muscles in his forearms bulged and undulated with every turn of his wrist, the thick veins that ran down the sides, the softness of the pale skin that covered the powerful muscles. There were scars, old scars, but nothing new there, and his eyes seemed clear.

She lifted her hand and touched his skin, her lover’s skin and felt the same sense of indescribable peace as she touched his arm, as she traced the veins there, remembered how his arms felt when he wrapped them around her, when she kissed them when he held her from behind. The magic of a lover’s skin...

Molly shook herself out of her thoughts, rolling up the sleeves of her lab coat and the long-sleeve t-shirt she wore beneath, showing him that she’d been keeping her promise to him. It seemed to cost her everything to keep her promise, to find different ways to distract herself from the overwhelming pain that seemed to permeate her every waking moment. She had stared at the razor more times than she could count, her hand trembling as she craved the appearance of the drops of blood against her skin that reminded her that she was alive, that she could feel, that she was  _alive_.

But she’d closed her eyes, put the razor down and collapsed against her bathtub, still trembling, counting to twenty and backwards until her breathing was even, until she remembered she was actually alive. She existed, and had dragged herself to her kitchen, busying herself by making herself a cup of tea, turning on the telly and trying to find something mindless. 

It was hard, but she’d done it. She’d kept putting the razor away, kept breathing, kept…existing.

For what, she wasn’t quite sure, but she kept her promise. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly, cupping her jaw in his palms, making her look up at him. The smallest smile was on his lips, a secret smile she thought put the Mona Lisa to shame. Staring up at him, she felt the familiar drowning, floating sensation she always felt, overwhelmed by his beauty, by his pale eyes, his high cheekbones, the pale eyelashes, the halo of black curls, the laugh lines around his eyes and exquisitely shaped mouth. He consumed her. 

“Hmm?” she managed, “for what?”

“For keeping you safe,” he told her, bending down to press the softest kiss to her cheek, stealing her breath away with his gentle touch, “for not giving up.”

Her eyes fluttered shut, “I didn’t do it for you.”

“I know,” he said rather hastily, “I know, but you did it. And that’s all that matters.”

They stood frozen for a few heartbeats, foreheads pressed together, simply breathing, synced, together in thought, in body. “My Molly,” he said so softly she thought she’d heard it in her thoughts, “I want to kiss you. May I?”

Panic swirled through her, inadequacy finding anger somewhere in the depths of her soul. She wanted to nod, to say yes, to beg for a taste of him but the anger won, “I’m—I don’t think—John and Lestrade are waiting for you, aren’t they?” she managed rather clumsily. 

His smile was sad and knowing, making her think that perhaps he read her thoughts as clearly as she could read his. “I’ll see you later,” and with a swirl of his coat, he was gone.

Sherlock pressed his fingertips to his eyes, frustrated and annoyed as he felt John’s need to say something, could practically see the jumbled thoughts swirling in his head like a cyclone. It was  _painful_  watching him trying to think, trying to formulate a thought, to come up with words to start a conversation that was going to be tricky. Sherlock finally snapped, “what is it,” he rolled his eyes, impatient.

“What?” John looked startled. 

“Clearly there’s something you wish to say or discuss, so please, hurry,” he urged as the cab took a sharp right turn, taking them towards the Thames and Scotland Yard, “or stop thinking, it’s becoming very annoying trying to sit in silence while you try to  _think_.”

“So tactful,” John rolled his eyes, as if he was just meeting Sherlock for the first time. But Sherlock’s patience for the rest of the world had waned in the face of Molly, everything he was now existed for her alone, “earlier, in the lab, before you came in, Molly…well, she was having a panic attack. She told me not to tell you.”

“I know,” Sherlock murmured, having seen the way she’d tried to catch her breath, to keep herself from passing out from the overwhelming thoughts and sensations. He’d watched the way she’d used the table to keep herself balanced, her voice deep as her heart thundered, her wild eyes as she’d told Watson not to worry, not to tell him. 

“You  _know_?” his best friend sounded indignant and Sherlock felt what little patience he had for the non-Molly’s of the world completely disappear.

“I’m not an imbecile,” he growled, “and I know far more than you do, as we are both painfully aware, and yet your moments of willful ignorance never fail to amuse me.”

“Well,” he growled, “when it comes to human emotions, especially when it comes to someone like Molly—”

Sherlock nearly threw John out of the window, rage consuming him. It was overwhelming to feel inadequate but to be accused of not knowing, of not understanding Molly’s emotions, not understanding or wanting to understand what she was living through...It had never bothered him before that people perceived him to be a robot, a proud, self-identified sociopath but when it came to Molly, now, in light of...everything. He didn’t want to be seen as underserving but knew he was, he didn’t want people to think Molly deserved better than him but she did. “Molly,” he growled her name, flaming white rage coloring his words as he spoke through a clenched jaw, “you don’t know a damned thing about someone like Molly.”

Was it normal to feel so changed, so shifted by the simple chemical reaction that had been labelled as love? Did everyone feel this sense of desperate attachment, a constant need to be with their beloved, to forsake life itself if it meant he could be with her?

He had to be better, he had to get better. 

She deserved the world and where he stood now, he wasn’t even a speck of a dust in an indifferent universe. 

John frowned but remained silent as they were driven to the Yard. But Sherlock didn’t notice his friend’s silence, the anger still fueling him, driving him.

He wanted to be normal, he wanted to understand things normally, to simply feel without the fear of self-judgement or self-incrimination.

How did other people feel without being scared of themselves? Was it normal to dissect and analyze every single emotion? To philosophize and theorize on every thought that crossed his mind, every emotion that he encountered. 

Something traumatic had happened to him as a child, he could admit at least that much. Something had happened that shouldn’t have happened, that shouldn’t happen to any child, ever. That something had created a domino effect, creating in his mind trapdoors and hidden rooms to help him function. In the midst of all that had occurred, his mind has triaged the situation, doing whatever it could to simply keep him going, to keep him a functioning human being. And in the midst of the triage, he knew, he had lost a lot of himself, a lot of the humanity that his parents had told him he’d as a child. The trapdoors and safe rooms had locked away his emotions, not allowing him to feel anything, to be void of emotion because otherwise, he would have remained huddled on the floor and never walked away.

_You told yourself a better story..._

His drug use came when those doors were opened, when some of what was hidden behind them slipped through the cracks and into his conscious mind, his thoughts. His harshness, his lack of sympathy for anyone was a result of that too. Self-protection, self-sustaining and self-destructive at the same time. 

Sherlock knew that was trauma, that anyone who had ever experienced something so pivotal dealt with the same trapdoors, had different methods of dealing with those leaks. 

What he hadn’t been able to make his peace with was that it had happened to him. 

He knew it was useless to rail against it, to ask why it had happened to him and his family and...Victor. He knew it was futile, idiotic because time only went forward, never back.

But the anger burned him.

And he didn’t know how to put it out.


End file.
